Tver and Tambov Regions Supported United Russia
// And city of Tambov preferred communists
Regional elections
Yesterday Tambov and Tver Regional Election Committees reported preliminary results of elections in regional parliaments that were held on Sunday. In both regions party United Russia has won. It had 40.5 percent of votes in Tambov Region and 33.23 percent in Tver Region. However, in city of Tambov the ruling party lost -- local electorate gave preference to communists, which gathered 31 percent of votes and bypassed United Russia with its 6 percent.
Alexander Sazonov, Chairman of Regional Election Committee announced that in Tambov Region only 3 parties out of 11 overcame 7 percent barrier, which is necessary to achieve in order to be elected in local Duma. Just as Kommersant predicted a day before, United Russia won with 40.52 percent and it secured 13-14 seats out of 25 in local parliament. The second and third places were occupied by Communist Party of Russian Federation (CPRF) and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) respectively. Communist gathered 19.95 percent and will have 7 or 8 mandates, and liberal democrats got 9.7 percent and reserved 3 or 4 seats for themselves. According to election results in 25 one-mandate districts United Russia won 15, CPRF, Agrarian Party and “Motherland will have two parliamentarians for each party. Independent candidates won in four other districts.
Thus, United Russia, which reserved for itself 29 out of 50 mandates, hopes to increase the numbers by recruiting independent candidates. “I think, we can talk about 32-33 seats, because among independent one-mandate winners there are our supporters. This way, we will have qualified majority and will be able to pass any laws,” Alexander Sabetov, head of the election headquarters of United Russia, told Kommersant.
“Majority of people in the region live below the poverty line. Even regional capital does not have such signs of “civilization” as office buildings, trade centers. For pit sake, they don’t even have public restrooms there,” Alexander Morozov, representative of LDPR, complained. “And opposition lost because in villages, where they have a strong administrative resource, it is practically impossible to gather a support: villagers, for example, do not understand why they need regional parliament if there is already Russian President and State Duma.”
In Tver Region United Russia also won with 33.23 percent of votes. Also, the required 5 percent was overcame by CPRF with 14.69 percent, Motherland (8,95 percent), People’s Will (7.75 percent), LDPR (7.41 percent), and Agrarian Party (5.17 percent). In one-mandate districts communists reserved two seats. Motherland Party and Agrarian Party had one of for each.
According to preliminary counts, the seats in Tver parliament were divided this way: United Russia will get 15 out of 33, CPRF -5, Motherland -3, People’s Will -2, and LDPR -2. One more mandate might go to representative of Agrarian party. Observers think that despite the fact that ruling party United Russia did not get even simple majority, it will be able to find partisans among other factions and independents.
Maria Simonova, Tambov; Roman Sazonov, Tver
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 20, 2005
|
